These days, the City Traffic Officer Rawalpindi Syed Ishtiaq Shah has upped the campaign against traffic violations. Clear directives have been sent by his office to clamp down on car owners and drivers who are double-parking and have tinted glass/black papers. Traffic wardens have not been spared and have been warned against using mobile phones on duty or huddling together in groups.
However, even as the City Traffic Police has taken practical steps – such as an education drive about traffic rules, engineering changes to streets and roads to prevent illegal double-parking and advertisements asking car owners to remove tinted windows – traffic violations continue to occur in the city and cantonment area.
According to the CTO, since the move against traffic wardens was launched, at least five cellphones being used by traffic wardens have been confiscated in less than four days and those spotted gossiping in groups have been asked to perform double duties.But there still remain a sizeable number of drivers and car owners who are either completely oblivious to the rule of law, choose to ignore it or have taken special measures to bypass it. For instance, an increasing number of vehicles are noted to have sought permission from the Ministry of Interior totint their windows, which has made the job of the traffic wardens difficult.
In fact, in what has proved to be sheer embarrassment for the Punjab police and government, a police officer suffered badly while he was performing his duty.
According to sources within the police, last Friday, then Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Syed Shahzad Nadeem Bukhari of Cantonment Circle spotted a vehicle with black film or glasses near Saddar.
When the car was flagged down, its driver claimed that it was owned by a member of the Punjab Assembly (MPA) from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.
The ASP is reported to have asked the car driver to either remove the black film from the glasses or to show any permission from the government for being allowed to use it. However, the driver could not produce any document.
Following the laid out protocol, the ASP impounded his vehicle and shifted it to the Cantonment police station. The vehicle was only released when the permission letter to use tinted windows was produced by the MPA.
On the surface it looked like an open and shut case file, but egos had been bruised.
Instead of appreciating the young ASP’s courage, the PML-N MPA reportedly lodged a complaint against him, who was then transferred to the IGP Office Lahore. Later, Mr Bukhari was posted as SDPO in Jand, Attock.
Undoubtedly, the CTO has been trying his best to get good performance out of the traffic wardens, but the treatment meted out to the ASP has proved to be embarrassing for the police department as well as chief minister Shahbaz Sharif who has spoken a mile about “good governance” and ending the ‘thana culture’.
It is quite obvious that if such incidents keep surfacing, quite a good number of officers will be lost. It is time that the political parties walked the talk as well and upheld the rule of law.